How To: Use Twitter

Online social networking will help you look for your next job; it will get you your next client; your next business contact; and, quite possibly, your next date. The days of face-to-face meetings and handshaking are for your father and his business contacts. Sure, there's still some face time to put in, but the real connection starts online. While there are countless networking options available, Twitter is extremely easy to use and is fast becoming a powerful tool for connecting with people from all walks of life.

The simple concept behind Twitter is the question: “What are you doing?” Are you working on a huge presentation for a client? Sketching a comic? Watching an AM movie pick? Grabbing drinks and looking for people to join you? Twitter lets people know what you're doing and gives them the option of responding and interacting. Twitter is essentially the social network status update without the entire page of teddy bear images and “25 Things I Didn’t Care To Learn About You” quizzes. It’s social interaction for adults.

Twitter, at first, looks intimidating. New users tend to work backward, often attempting to immediately interact and connect without first setting up their account and getting a feel for the program.

Let’s start from the beginning and get acclimated with all Twitter has to offer. Here are a few easy steps to get you “tweeting” in no time.

Set up your page

Just like every other social media website, Twitter works best when you personalize your page. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, this doesn’t involve pictures of a vacation in Cabo and friends sharing pieces of flair. The first step is to fill out the personal information section. Choose a username that fits best with our ultimate Twitter goal. If you're looking to use Twitter as a social website, then feel free to use a clever name or already recognizable screen name from other accounts. If you want Twitter to be a business networking tool, use your real name. If you're interested in building an audience for your website or clients for your business, use the full names of either. The username becomes your URL and can be changed at any time (without losing people) so long as the new username is available.

Next, fill out the appropriate lines of information such as; your website URL, online bio and location. In the online bio, be brief and don’t use full sentences for explanations. For example, instead of explaining you're “in marketing and enjoy creative writing,” just put “marketing, creative writer.” Be sure to add a personal picture or company logo in the avatar so followers will recognize you when you comment. Twitter does give the option of uploading a custom-designed background. This is great for businesses and websites to add company logos and contact information.

Dive right in

What are you doing? (Besides trying to figure out Twitter, of course.) Just type in what you're doing at that very moment. Make it brief because Twitter only allows for 140 characters. Make it relatable to others so they can comment and connect. If you're interested in adding a URL but it goes over the character limit, make use of websites like TinyURL.com, which can take any URL and condense it to just a few letters.

Chances are that at first you won’t get many responses because you don’t have a following. It’s like talking in an empty room. Like you would at any other networking function, start by finding the people you already know and connect to them. Twitter has an e-mail search option that allows the user to enter their e-mail address and find Twitter accounts. Unlike social media sites that call connecting to others “friending,” Twitter refers to this as "following." Follow all of your friends and let them know you are now on Twitter. To make a comment on their page, just type in the "What are you doing?" box on your page, starting with the @ symbol and their username. This is the trickiest feature on Twitter. Only people following you will see your comment on their page. Unless they check the replies section, your comment will go unnoticed, so don’t get discouraged if people who aren’t following you don’t respond to your comments.

Twitter also has a "suggested users" option, and will show you people you should be following. It also lets you invite new users to Twitter, or just find people with common interests. A helpful tool for finding new people you should be following is the Mr. Tweet program. Find the Mr. Tweet Twitter page and follow. Mr. Tweet will then send a direct message to you listing the most important people you should be following based on who you're currently following, who's following you and who they follow.

Learning how to use Twitter isn't difficult and you'll be "following" in no time...